Folder refresh needed

Duncan 1i5t5.duncan at cox.net
Tue Oct 16 04:04:55 BST 2012


Kevin Krammer posted on Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:44:45 +0200 as excerpted:

>> Just a heads-up.  KMail isn't the same old reasonably stable app that
>> it used to be; that I used for nearing a decade.
> 
> It still is. Using it every day, for business and private messaging.

No disrespect intended as you've been helpful to me, but IMO for a normal 
user, that's a technical difference without a practical application.

Think about it.  Why would people use kmail if not for mail?  If that 
mail is lost or there's complications with the local database storage 
thereof, it doesn't matter if it's kmail's fault, the backend's fault, or 
the fault of some malware holding it for ransom, to the user, it's lost 
mail, or otherwise unexpected mail behavior (mail or address resources 
unavailable, etc).

With my own experience and frustrations fading, I'm trying hard not to be 
so negative about the whole thing.  But I still believe it warrants an 
honest heads-up from someone who has been burned when the topic comes up, 
so people can keep their options open, just in case.

Actually, I think the ideal approach would have been to introduce a 
"testing" kmail2 along with kmail1, keeping that official status thru 
kde4 to the kde5/frameworks bump.  That would have allowed a rather 
longer stabilizing process for kmail2/akonadi, as people like me that 
enjoy testing things... as long as the status of what they're tested 
isn't misrepresented, would have very likely switched to and thus tested 
kmail2 and akonadi at some point, but could have dropped back to kmail1 
if they found kmail2 wasn't working so well.

Then with kde5/frameworks, kmail1 support could be dropped as a legacy 
kde4 technology, and people doing the 4/5 upgrade would expect some 
disruption such as format conversions, etc.  Of course by then many would 
have already converted and be running the "testing" kmail2 anyway, thus 
wouldn't have had to deal with the mail/address/etc conversion at the 4/5 
upgrade, as they'd have already done it.

Unfortunately it's not happening that way.  Which means it's all the more 
important to warn people about the possible problems with the newly 
akonadified kmail system, thus avoiding a /total/ repeat of the whole 
early kde4 fiasco.  I know from experience what a beta is like, and that 
my problem tolerance level is better if I know it's a beta than if it's 
marketed as stable, so getting that warning out there can't but improve 
the situation and user experience. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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